


what will you make of me, when I bite down?

by erintoknow



Series: Aria-Rough Drafts [13]
Category: Fallen Hero Series - Malin Rydén, Fallen Hero: Rebirth (Video Game)
Genre: Depression, F/F, POV Female Character, POV Second Person, Slow Burn, Suicidal Thoughts, Trans Character, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2019-09-19
Packaged: 2020-10-24 09:15:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20703554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erintoknow/pseuds/erintoknow
Summary: One moment you're having an evening brooding in your own misery, the next everything's gone to hell in entirely new and unexpected ways.





	what will you make of me, when I bite down?

**Author's Note:**

> title from [[I Might Disappear by Mermaidens]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8zzp5FeMP8)

The diner is a bustle of noise and chatter. You have to wrap your song tight around you to keep the incessant buzz down to a bearable roar. These chain places are always tourist-trap dumps. Your puppet found the place original but you’ve taken a liking to it. No chance of running into any old faces here. No old memories to jump out from behind a wall at you.

Memory of gunfire. Psychopathor issues his challenge and there you are again, under the car. Ghost pain lancing through your leg, but– that’s not how things went this time around the wheel, is it?

Not… Not exactly anyway. You got out this time. Under your own power. Got the telepathic targeting matrix the suit needed to control the nanovores. Some kind of ratking monstrosity. A fellow victim of science. Even made sure Jane’s contact Rosie got out unharmed. And what did that night of victories cost you, really?

Run your hands up your arms, even under the sleeves you can feel the dulled fire of fresh scars, still healing from where lines of red had been raked across. Matching lines run down your back. Fighting a combat-class re-gene had been a stupid, pointless move but…

You drink your water to hide the smile.

Fought and lived, bitch.

This time anyway.

Even at the top of your game during the old days you would never have dared to tangle with a fight like that. It’s true you’re far stronger, telepathically, then you were back then, but it’s more than that.

There’s a power in not caring whether you live or die.

Or; in recognizing you’re already dead. Scrapped off the asphalt and poured into a hollow mold of whatever might once have been. It was a stupid dream to think you could ever be anything more than an object. Human beings will anthropomorphize anything. You aren’t special.

You shove a forkful of chocolate cake into your mouth as you stare past the empty seat across from you. You’re not sure which is more unhealthy, the chocolate cake or indulging these negative thoughts. Either way, who cares?

The people you thought were you friends abandoned you. But of course they would. It should have been transparently obvious to anyone that knew you back then that you were messed up. They were probably all glad to be rid of you. You bet Steel threw a party.

And Ortega… if anyone was going to care about you it would have been Ortega. How many times had you bled for each other? Covered one another? How many nights holding the other up? Her mom had practically adopted you.

But no. None of it had meant anything in the end apparently.

What you felt meant nothing.

To anyone.

You self-proclaimed caretakers had only twisted the wounds further. Opened up more. A well deserved punishment for trying to be someone. For mistaking this body as your own. You put down the fork and push up your sunglasses with the palm of your hands, pressing against your eyes. You’re not human. You don’t have feelings. What do you care? You don’t, that’s what.

The Directive spent five years making sure you’d never forget it again.

Well, guess who got out and is coming back for another verse, bastards? You’ll put off killing yourself just long enough to see the Farm burned to the ground, and if you have to take out a few old friends along the way, what do you care? They were never really your friends, never really knew _you_, and Ariadne is seven years dead.

You take a breath. You’re fine. You’re in control. You don’t feel anything. Pick up your fork again, stab it into the cake hard enough it makes a ‘doink’ sound.

You’re just the wraith, come to take– not justice exactly. You’d have to be human to be wronged; to have some sort of right to exist at all in order to seek justice. But you can get revenge. For you, for the rest of their tools, for all the people the Directive and their little game of spiderweb across the country has done to twist and warp and _ruin_ everything it touches.

You’ve been free for almost two years now and you still have nightmares of being back there, piercing white light blinding everything–

“Ariadne? Ariadne is that really you?”

_what the fuck_

“I can’t believe it. It really is you.”

You jump in your seat, whipping your head around the room. Who the hell would be using that name with– with that voice? A woman standing some distance down the aisle. Obnoxious white suit. Her hair is cropped short and lines frame a face more weathered then you remember but–

You press your shades tight against your face. “Or-ortega?” you whisper, eyes wide, staring at her. You shift in your seat. Can you escape from here? Ortega’s between you and the exit. How thick is the glass? Can you jump through the window? It’s not happening. There’s no way you can move fast enough.

You’re trapped.

Again.

She tenses, not breaking eye-contact. She’s looking at you like she’s seen a ghost. Like you aren’t real. Or too real, or maybe you’re just projecting onto an unreadable mind just like before. She abandoned you. To bastards who wouldn’t even let you die. You throat is so tight it hurts, and there’s a pressure under your eyes.

Take a breath. Stay in control. Put down your fork. Don’t acknowledge the cake sitting upside-down in your lap. “Wow,” you breath out, “how– how long has it been?” You watch as she moves towards you. You’re trapped. You can’t escape. “A decade?”

Ortega’s face flickers through emotions faster than you can read them, out of practice with her as you are. God, she still looks exactly like you remember her. Older, sure, but she’s still Julia Ortega. Still that fuzz of static masking her thoughts. She sits down across from you in the booth, hands on the table. “It’s been seven years.”

She says it like she’s counted every day.

“It– it– it feels longer than that,” you hazard.

This can’t be real.

This isn’t how you were supposed to meet again. If ever.

You aren’t ready. _You are not ready for this_.

There’s a pained laugh from Ortega and she hides her eyes behind a hand as she rubs her forehead. “You’re right there. Dios mio, it’s really you, isn’t it? Ariadne?”

You look away from her, focus on putting your ruined cake back on the plate. Maybe you should have dyed your hair.

“Dyed your–?” Ortega’s voice is sharp, and she’s look right at you. “Were you _trying_ to avoid me?”

_Shit_. You said that out loud. You swallow back a wave of nausea as you look up. “Was that– was it that obvious?”

“Fucking pendeja!” Ortega spits, face twisted in an anger that makes you shrink back in your seat. “I thought you were dead! Where– where have you been?”

“Ortega, I–”

“I spent seven years thinking I caused your death!”

“Ortega–”

Her eyes are wet, face red. “We held a goddamn funeral for you and Anathema!”

Anger boils up in your throat, and you slam your hand down on the table hard enough to make your fork jump. “Did you think I _wanted_ what happened to me!?”

Ortega freezes and fixes in on you. “What? What happened?” The sharp shift from anger to… to whatever this is, is throwing you off. “Ariadne, what happened?”

“What do you mean ‘what happened?’ You were there Ortega!” There’s people staring at the two of you. Fuck them.

“There was–” Ortega falters for a moment, “–an explosion, I got knocked out. Chen had to fill me in afterwards. The military ended up bombing the building.”

You cling to the anger churning in your stomach. “Why do you even care? You abandoned me!”

She reels back in the seat as if you slapped her. “Abandoned you?” When she talks again her voice is barely a whisper, “Ariadne, they told me you died. On the way to the hospital. Steel saw you get loaded into an ambulance.”

“_Steel_ said that?” Choke back something between a laugh and sob. “And you _believed_ him?”

“They burned all the bodies. In case it was some kind of gas. Ari, just want kind of man do you think Steel is!?”

You hug yourself, sinking down into your chair. “He– he– he hated me, you know that.”

There’s a pained look on Ortega’s face as she furrows her eyebrows. “…he doesn’t hate you.” Ortega breathes out a long sigh, pulls a handful a napkins from the dispenser and presses them her face before continuing. “What _happened to you_, Ariadne?” You know that twitch in her hands, she’s holding herself back from reaching for you.

How can she not know?

_How can she not know?_

The pain in her voice, her face. The anger made sense, but _this_? What is this? Why is she acting like this? Ortega is the one that turned you back over to the Directive. That’s what… they… told you…?

You can taste the bile in the back of your mouth.

You slump further back in your seat.

“I– I can’t talk about it.” You finally get out. You limply hold up a hand to stop Ortega from whatever she was going to say. “There was a reason that I– that I couldn’t join the Rangers.” You watch Ortega’s face from the corner of your eye, there’s no flash of understanding. No fleeting guilty look. Just… frustration and concern.

“Ariadne?” Is Ortega being honest? Did you… did you really misjudge the situation?

“Whatever… Chen thinks he saw, it’s not a hospital they took me too. They– they faked my death and then…” You choke. Grab the edge of the table to stop your hands from shaking.

It’s not too late yet. You could… you could stop. Come clean. Tell Ortega everything right now. Or okay, well, _almost_ everything. Nothing else has to happen. Call off the whole plan.

But–

Even if – _if_ – Ortega didn’t just… turn you over, she was still a Ranger. Still a tool of the very system that committed the original sin of creating you in the first place. You can not – should not – trust her. She is your enemy. She was always your enemy, really. You were just too stupid and naive to understand back then.

You shake your head. Breath in. Breath out. You’re in control. “Look, Ortega… once I, uh–” You can’t stop the wince, can already see Ortega’s anger softening into worry, “–escaped. I… I had to keep a low profile. So… so I’m retired now, I guess.”

“Ari… why didn’t you come to us? Come to _me_?”

You try on a grin, it feels fake. “The Los Diablos Rangers aren’t exactly ‘low profile’ Jul– Ortega.”

“Ariadne, we could have done something. Taken action. Who did this to you?”

Knife twist. You can’t trust her. Can’t trust anyone. This is another trap. “Ortega, by the time I could have gotten anything to you, I was already out, it was over, so…”

She leans over the table towards. In a harsh whisper she says, “if you still need to hide then it sure doesn’t sound like it’s over!”

“Maybe I just didn’t _want_ you help?” You spit back before you can think about what you’re saying. “Maybe I didn’t _want_ to put my best friend in danger?”

“Ari.” Ortega’s expression is unreadable. “We’re the Rangers, remember? Danger is kind of our thing?”

“Maybe I wanted to protect _you_ for once, Ortega? These people are dangerous.”

Either Ortega is lying right now in which case she can go to hell, _or_ she’s telling the truth and letting her get close again is only going to put her in danger.

From the Directive.

And soon from you.

Either way, the your only course of action is the same.

“Ari…” She can’t hold herself back any longer, you quickly pull your hand away before it gets trapped under hers. “I have spent… the past seven years trying to come to terms with being responsible your’s and Anathema’s deaths.”

“I’m– I’m sorry.” Again, speaking without thinking. This isn’t want you wanted. She wasn’t supposed to still care. You had been forgotten. Disposed of. But that’s not how she’s… Ortega can be sneaky but she’s not _that_ good of an actor.

“I– I never wanted–” You pinch your nose, rub at your eyes. “It wasn’t your fault.” Even as you say it, you don’t know if you mean it or not. You expected she’d be upset over Anathema, but.. this is _your_ trauma. Give it back.

Ortega reaches for your hand again and this time you don’t pull away. Let hers rest over yours. “Did you really think I’d just… what? Move on and forget about you?”

That gets a bitter laugh out of you. Stare down at your cake, don’t look at her face. That’s exactly what happened, wasn’t it Ortega?

Wasn’t it?

Her hand tightens over yours, and there’s a pain in your chest, like strings wound to the point of breaking. “You were my best friend, Ariadne.”

The two of you sit there in silence.

You study your cake, sitting on the plate upside down now. There’s still smears of chocolate icing on your jeans.

Ortega breaks the silence first: “I’m so glad you’re alive.” It’s whisper, barely audible.

You manage to bite back the words on your tongue before you can say something snide like ‘that makes one of us.’ You don’t want to seem too dysfunctional or she’ll never leave you be. Or maybe she would. You’re not sure which would feel worse. Force a strained smile on your face instead.

She smiles back at you and you find your own feels slightly less fake.

“Will you at least keep in touch now?” She says.

You shouldn’t but–

“Okay.” You say.

“Actually…” There’s a hollow laugh from Ortega. “This almost feels like divine providence.” Now there’s a look you recognize. How she glances at the ceiling, gears spinning.

You tense up, pull your hand out from under hers.“What?”

Ortega tilts her head as she looks back at you. “I mean, you _are_ still a telepath, right?”

You look away, frowning. “W–what kind of question is that?”

“It’s just, there’s this friend of mine who’s in some trouble…”

Oh.

You let yourself smile. “You’re ‘friend’ huh?” This is too familiar. Painfully so. Ortega has always had a lot of… friends. And always been nosy. It’s a welcome change of subject at least.

She must have picked up what you meant because her eyes widen and she shakes her head. “It’s not like that!” She laughs, “They’re just a friend, _really_.”

“Uh-huh. Sure he is.”

“She, actually.” Ortega shrugs.

You blink. Oh. Huh. “So– what’s the problem?”

“I’d rather not talk about it in public.” Ortega glances around the diner. “Do you mind… hearing her out? Weighing in?”

You straighten up. “What? Why?”

“This is kind of a delicate situation and–”

“Why me?” Seven years… that’s longer than you ever even knew each other.

Ortega rubs the back of her neck. “It’s exactly the kind of thing I’ve missed having you around for.” Her face is like a gut stab. “And… I trust you, you know?” Twist the knife, why don’t you Ortega.

“Okay.”

Wait. Your heart freezes. What did you just say?

“Really?” She lights up. “Great, let me just call her and see if they’re free.”

“Wait– what? Right now?” But Ortega is already dialing a number on her insulated brick of a phone. This is a mistake. Why did you say yes?

Ortega was mad with you, yes, but also, sad, and also happy? And how do you feel? you don’t know – no, trick question, you don’t feel anything. Are nothing, feel nothing. You watch Ortega talk on the phone, her free hand drawing circles on the table. You don’t miss her, so why does your chest hurt so bad?

Maybe…

Maybe you can use this to get some intel on what Ortega’s up to these days. Maybe even the Rangers in general. You hadn’t banked on being able to get insider information, but maybe you can make this work. You just have to be able to play the game.

Be a cuckoo.

Can you do it? Can you even remember what your old self was like? Sometimes it feels like the only things you remember where the worst parts.

“Okay, great, we’ll meet you there.” Ortega snaps her phone shut as the screen goes dark. She glances back at you as she puts it away. “Are you still eating? Do you mind heading out now?”

“Still charging blindly ahead, I see.” You poke the ruins of your cake with your fork.

Ortega winces. “Sorry, this is just something that’s been eating away at me for awhile.”

“I’ll try to help, but… whatever this is; I don’t know what you expect me to do about it.”

“Hey, you did a lot more than just punch people as Sidestep.”

You drop the fork, push the plate away from you. “Sidestep is dead.”

She frowns at that, but doesn’t have a response.

“Well, no point in making her wait, I guess.” You shift in your seat and start fishing around for you wallet.

Ortega puts up a hand, “It’s fine, I’ve got it. I owe you.” She tosses a ten a twenty onto the table between the two of you. You glance between her and the money. You know what? Fine, whatever, she wants to cover it go ahead. It’s her fault the cake was ruined anyway.

As the two of you shuffle out of the booth and stand up, Ortega steps towards you and in one continuous motion pulls you into a hug.

You go rigid, hands at your sides as she holds you. Should have expected this. Should have evaded, or prepared or something or–

“Uh–” There’s a pain behind your eyes again and your throat hurts. “Or–ortega?

“Sorry, I–” She lets you go with a smile, “I couldn’t do this when you were sitting down.”

“Give– give a girl some warning first, okay?”

“Don’t disappear on me again.”


End file.
